Villa Luna

The last stretch of road to Villa Luna is still unpaved, and the lane narrows enough that the villa will send its own driver if you have booked something large. It is worth the fuss. The house stands where the built-up lanes of Pererenan give out and the paddies begin, and it is turned squarely to face them: two storeys of grey concrete and dark timber stepping down the slope, an infinity pool running the whole front edge, and nothing between the water and the rice but a screen of banana leaf and palm. From the deck the fields lie flat and green all the way to a distant treeline. Parking is inside the gate.

The ground floor is one long pavilion under a ceiling of dark timber boards, open along its entire length to the pool. A deep sofa in pale linen sits on a round jute rug with a low carved table in front of it; beyond that a live-edge dining table seats eight in rattan chairs beneath three woven pendants, and the kitchen closes the far end with a stone-topped island, a row of bar stools and warm light under the cabinets. Everything is timber, stone and off-white. With the doors drawn back and the fans turning, the only difference between sitting inside and sitting on the deck is whether you are in the sun.

Four king bedrooms are spread across the two floors, each with a bathroom of its own. The master takes the upper level: a wall-sized landscape mural behind the bed, a freestanding oval tub standing in the room itself, and a private balcony where the rice-field panorama is at its best in the first hour of daylight. The other three carry full-width headboard walls of woven rattan panel and fine timber slats, with blackout blinds, desks and reading chairs. The bathrooms are the surprise, all timber and vessel basins, one of them opening behind a slatted screen onto a stone tub set among ferns and heliconia under the open sky.

Because of that lane, the villa’s own driver is the service worth booking first, and a cook comes a close second: eight people and a kitchen this size make eating in the obvious choice, and the staff will float a breakfast tray on the pool for anyone who wants the photograph. A pool fence can be fitted for small children at a modest charge. There is no washing machine, so laundry goes through the concierge. Daily cleaning is included, the pool and garden are tended two or three times a week, and someone is reachable at any hour of the night.

Villa Luna does one thing better than almost anything else in Pererenan, and it does it from every room: it looks at the rice. Eight people spread across four king suites and two floors without crowding each other, and the unpaved last stretch of lane is half the reason that view is still there at all.